JIM HOOKER NAMED NJN NEWS ANCHOR

STATEWIDE – Michael Aron, Interim Director of NJN News and Public Affairs, announced today that Jim Hooker, State House Correspondent, will succeed Kent Manahan, as anchor of NJN News effective January 2009.

“After careful deliberation and consultation, I am pleased to name Jim Hooker as anchor of NJN News,” Aron announced. “Jim is a seasoned journalist with deep background in the issues and politics of the state and credibility in the state capitol. He has represented NJN nationally and abroad, and at forums around the state. He brings weight and years of experience to the anchor chair. Jim also will be managing editor of the news and will be influential in the overall direction and tone of the newscast.”

“As NJN News State House correspondent, Jim Hooker brings two decades of award-winning reporting to build on the legacy that Kent Manahan has established as anchor,” states Elizabeth Christopherson, executive director of NJN Public Television and Radio. “We are delighted to recognize other members of the NJN award-winning team: Mike Curtis, the current producer of NJN News, who has been promoted to executive producer, and Peggy Micucci, assignment editor, who will be executive editor.”

Jim Hooker Biography

In addition to daily reporting for the newscast, Hooker serves as a substitute anchor for NJN News and primary substitute host for Reporters Roundtable with Michael Aron, where State House reporters dissect and handicap New Jersey politics. He also serves as an occasional host for On the Record.  NJN viewers saw a lot of Hooker as he led NJN's 'round the clock coverage of the first-ever state government shutdown during the '06 budget crisis. He has contributed special reports and produced documentaries from such varied spots around the globe as China, Hong Kong and the Netherlands. 

Hooker has been recognized with the prestigious national CINE Golden Eagle award for a documentary that aired on NJN in 2005 that he wrote, co-produced and hosted. The program, Securing Our Ports, probed the issue of port security in the Netherlands and New Jersey well before the Dubai ports controversy broke nationally.  Hooker helped NJN News win a 1996 Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award for best newscast with a story about the concerns of residents of a North Jersey neighborhood that was home to a federal Superfund site.

He has won numerous regional and local press awards. In 2003, he won a first place feature reporting award from the Philadelphia Press Association for a story on a Newark soup kitchen.  He has been part of NJN's team coverage of U.S. presidential conventions in Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia, New York and Minnesota. One highlight from the 2000 presidential campaign was a one-on-one sit-down with President Bush, then governor of Texas. Jim's work in journalism has been recognized repeatedly by his peers. In 2001, he was elected by reporters and bureau chiefs who cover the State House for other media outlets as president of the New Jersey Legislative Correspondents Club, becoming the first president in the club's 80-plus year history to come from the broadcast media. He has also been recognized in the community. Such recognition includes the 2006 William H. Thomas Citizen of the Year award from the Probation Association of New Jersey. Jim was selected for the award by Mr. Thomas. The two met through tragedy in 1994 when Jim covered the Thomas and Wengert families' push for reforms for the Asbury Park Press after Mr. Thomas' six-year-old granddaughter, Amanda Wengert, was murdered.

Before joining NJN, Jim was a staff writer at three newspapers, including 10 years with The Times of Trenton and the Asbury Park Press.

As a member of the Asbury Park Press State House bureau, Jim shared first-place honors from the New Jersey Press Association for the bureau's reporting on the 1993 governor's race. Jim was also recognized for an award by the New Jersey Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists in 1994 for a series of reports on sex offender notification programs in Washington state and their impact on neighborhoods and offenders. The series ran as lawmakers here were debating Megan's Law.

In 1990, while with the Trenton Times State House Bureau, Jim was awarded the top prize for investigative reporting by the New Jersey Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. The Society recognized Jim's exposure of and subsequent reporting on millions of dollars in unauthorized spending by a New Jersey State official. His reports led to a new state law strengthening penalties for such actions.

Jim started his journalism career as an intern at the Herald-Dispatch newspaper in Huntington, WV, while still a student at Marshall University. After graduating Marshall, he returned to his native Long Island, landing a job at the Smithtown News, the flagship paper for a chain of weeklies on Long Island's north shore. While with the paper in 1984, he was awarded the James Murphy Memorial Cub Reporter of the Year award from the Society of Professional Journalists, Press Association of Long Island Chapter. Jim left the News in 1985 to work at the Trenton Times, starting there as a general assignment reporter.

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